Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Rumors are swirling about the possibility of another round of layoffs at Gannett Co. Inc., parent company of The Des Moines Register.
Jim Hopkins, who follows the company at GannettBlog, is reporting that two sources have confirmed the company’s principal executive and chief financial officer has ordered across-the-board layoffs. The layoffs are expected to take place July 8 and total 4,500 jobs in the company’s newspaper division.
Sources inside The Register’s newsroom confirmed the rumors have made there way to employees at the paper, but said management has not made any formal announcements regarding job cuts.
The headquarters of The Des Moines Register in downtown Des Moines.
Last August, Gannett eliminated 1,000 jobs, including 600 layoffs, at its 85 local papers across the country. At that time, The Register eliminated 12 full-time and three part-time positions, and announced 11 vacant positions would go unfilled.
Another round of layoffs followed in December, this time totaling nearly 3,000 employees company wide. In Iowa, The Register eliminated 56 jobs and Gannett’s other Iowa papers — the Iowa City Press-Citizen, the Indianola Record-Herald and the Altoona Herald – eliminated 25 jobs.
All told, Gannett eliminated more than 100 newsroom positions in Iowa during 2008.
Since the layoffs, the company has instituted two rounds of weeklong furloughs in hopes of staving off another round of job cuts. However, in an interview with the Iowa Independent in December, Register Publisher Laura Hollingsworth said she could not guarantee that the layoffs were over in 2009.
Hollingsworth and Susan Patterson Plank, the paper’s vice president of marketing and digital development, could not be reached for comment.
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